General Insurance Research Reports

Risk management reports that are relevant to general insurance matters are available for download below.

2024

Takaful: An Alternative Approach to Insurance
April
Delve into this fundamental aspect of Shari’ah-compliant financial services, designed to address individuals' insurance requirements in accordance with Islamic principles and values.

2023

Catastrophic Cyber Risk: An Expert Panel Discussion Part 4
June
This report focuses on various aspects related to catastrophic cyber risks and the role of the cyber insurance sector and its stakeholders in mitigating both pre-incident and post-incident challenges. It explores actions that should be taken to address these risks and the role of government in supporting the cyber insurance sector. The thresholds for intervention and the impacts of government action on the sector are also key topics. Additionally, the report explores evolution of cyber insurance to better respond to catastrophic cyber risk events and addresses key takeaways for actuaries and insurers.

Catastrophic Cyber Risk: An Expert Panel Discussion Part 3
May
This report is the third deliverable in a series of four expert panel discussions on catastrophic cyber incidents. The expert panel discussion answered several research questions about the biggest risks and challenges for the insurance sector to respond to such developing cyber incidents, the course of action of the insurance industry, and how insurance companies could react. The conclusions drawn from the conversations reveal information about the impact of the incidents and challenges for the insurance industry.

CyLit: An NLP-Powered Repository and Search Tool for Cyber Risk Literature
April
To complement the limitations posed by the static nature of current survey papers in cyber risk literature and to facilitate cyber risk research, this project features a Natural Language Processing (NLP)-powered repository and search tool “CyLit” built by the authors.

Perceptions of Younger Generations on Risk and Insurance
April
This study aims to explore the evolution of and trends in how consumers from younger generations understand, investigate, and purchase private insurance plans.

Catastrophic Cyber Risk: An Expert Panel Discussion Part 2
March
With the growing threat of cyber incidents, organizations and governments are rightfully concerned and there is a need to understand and provide greater context around the topic of catastrophic cyber risk, which has implications for insurance companies, reinsurers, regulators, consumers, and society.
This report is the second output of a series of four multi-disciplinary panel discussions that employs red teaming techniques to gather insights from a diverse set of experts regarding evolving catastrophic cyber risks and how to plan ahead, mitigate, and respond to them.

Cyber Risks in the Smart Home Ecosystem: Identification, Modeling, and Pricing
February
This project enhances the current understanding of cyber risks in the smart home ecosystem from the insurance industry's perspective. In particular, the quantitative framework and pricing strategies developed in this project can be immediately adopted/adapted by actuaries to price the cyber risks for smart homes, a fast-growing insurance market.

Catastrophic Cyber Risk: An Expert Panel Discussion Part 1
January
With the growing threat of cyber incidents, organizations and governments are rightfully concerned and there is a need to understand and provide greater context around the topic of catastrophic cyber risk, which has implications for insurance companies, reinsurers, regulators, consumers, and society.

Taking a multi-disciplinary, holistic approach to catastrophic cyber risk, an expert panel discussion was conducted featuring a strong and diverse conversation on catastrophic cyber risk. This report sets the scene and frames catastrophic cyber risk and is the first of four expert panel discussions and reports in this series.

2022

Implications of Evolving Technology in Auto Insurance: An Expert Panel Discussion
December
The rapid advancement of technology today will revolutionize how humans interact with their vehicles in the near future. Vehicle manufacturer initiatives to incorporate new technology into their products should usher in societal benefits such as improved driving safety, enhanced fuel efficiency and potentially lower costs for insurance. These improvements come with a cost and have potential pitfalls. As the collection, analysis and integration of driving-related data occurs within organizations, the potential for unintended adverse outcomes is high.

In October 2022, the SOA Research Institute assembled a panel of experts, to engage in a discussion to explore these issues. This report summarizes key points raised during the expert panel’s discussion — and may serve as a catalyst for readers to engage in further discussion, to anticipate and prepare for the impact of technology on the evolution of the automobile and insurance industries.

A Hydro-EVT Approach to Flood Insurance Pricing
September
The research provides a modeling framework for assessing the inundation risk of properties and their expected flood damages, thereby laying a foundation for flood insurance pricing. The researchers studied over 50 years of claims data from the National Flood Insurance Program with 2.5 million records and identified property characteristics that predict flood damages for inundated properties. The development of a private flood insurance market benefits from insurers’ ability to better understand and price flood risk. This research takes a closer look at flood risk modeling and flood insurance pricing.

Cyber Risk Modeling Methods and Data Sets
September
This report reviews the academic and grey literature on “cyber insurance” and “cyber actuary” across multiple disciplines. This study benefits both practitioners and academics by contributing to the current body of literature by being the most extensive review to date that incorporates both academic and grey literature (resources produced outside of traditional publishing and distributing channels, such as reports by government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and companies). The study provides both academics and practitioners with a comprehensive, interdisciplinary synopsis of the methods, datasets, challenges, and future directions that will aid actuaries and risk managers.

Examining Auto Loss Trends through the COVID Pandemic
August 
The COVID-19 pandemic affected the auto insurance industry in many ways. In this report we will examine the effects of the pandemic on auto losses using dynamic linear models. We examine which predictors best describe the trends, and the impact the pandemic has on predicted future claims.

2021

The Potential Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Medical Malpractice Claims from Diagnostic Errors in Radiology in New York
September
This report provides an exploration of the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on medical malpractice claims, with a focus on one specialty (radiology) and one state (New York). The discussions in this report are targeted to actuaries who are interested in developing a method to quantify the potential impact of AI to their own medical malpractice portfolio or to their own work.

Telematics Car Driving Data Analytics
August
With the advancements of telematics technology, insurers can collect detailed car driving information. The aim of this project has three aspects: (1) providing a comprehensive literature review on telematics car driving data analytics; (2) developing various visual tools and a data cleaning procedure for telematics data; and (3) extracting risk factors from individual trips and improving classic classification ratemaking models with those risk factors.

Modeling and Pricing Cybersecurity Risks in Fog Computing Based IoT Architectures
June
In this paper, we propose a novel class of propagation models to study the cybersecurity risks in fog computing cased IoT architectures, which are significantly different from the quantitative frameworks used in the existing cyber-related works within actuarial literature.

Business Interruption Insurance Compendium
May 
This report includes various articles, papers, program proposals and legislative notes that provide insight into Business Interruption Insurance and the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on its current and future state of coverage.

Evolving Trends in Commercial Liability Insurance
March 
The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic effects have resulted in significant insurance impacts. The General Insurance Research Committee (GIRC) of the SOA put forth a call for essays exploring the potential effects on commercial liability insurance. The committee selected this essay, “Evolving Trends in Commercial Liability Insurance,” submitted by Karl Canty and Varun Balutia of EXL, and awarded them a prize of $1,000. The GIRC congratulates the authors and is happy to publish the winning essay on The Actuary website.

2020

Auto Loss Costs: Dynamic Linear Models with Changepoints
November 2020
In this paper a new model is developed to better understand the complicated dynamics in personal auto insurance.

Exposure Measures for Pricing and Analyzing the Risks in Cyber Insurance
June 2020
This report identifies and makes recommendations regarding possible exposure measures for pricing and analyzing the risks in cyber insurance.

Residential Flood Risk in the United States: Quantifying Flood Losses, Mortgage Risk and Sea Level Rise
May 2020
This report evaluates the impact and evolution of societal risk management due to projected future changes in frequency, severity, and variety of weather-related catastrophes.

Quantification of Cyber Risk for Actuaries
May 2020
This study aims to develop a generic model that can be applied by any organization. For the validation of the developed cyber risk analysis method, simulations and sensitivity analysis will be performed.

Projecting a Dependent Loss Ratio Under Shifting Parameters
May 2020
Reserving and ratemaking calculations are vital to how insurance companies perform financially. In this report, two main theorems are discussed, each addressing prediction of future loss ratio or pure premium and improving upon current practices for how rates and reserves are calculated.

Auto Loss Cost Trends 2019 Update
January 2020
A series of reports on Auto Loss Costs for 2019 including trends, collision, comprehensive, bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury protections.

2019

Predictive Analysis: The Effects of Technology and Weather on Crop Yield
December 2019
This research proposes a methodology to isolate crop yield improvement due to technological change and favorable and unfavorable weather.

Loss Modeling of Rollover for Autonomous Vehicles
November 2019
This research provides methodological tools for an insurer to better understand the potential losses incurred by autonomous vehicles in the context of rollover risk.

An Update on the Outlook for Automated Vehicle Systems
October 2019
To help describe current trends and highlight differences between the cars we see on the street today and driverless vehicles, this report relies on three market-related definitions; safe, self-driving and driverless.

2018

Market Framework and Outlook for Automated Vehicle Systems
November 2018
The surface transportation industry is in the early stages of a series of profound changes, stimulated by the development of increasingly sophisticated driving safety and automation technologies.

Auto Loss Cost Trends
September 2018 
In the latter half of 2013, personal auto insurance carriers began to notice an uptick in property damage liability and collision frequency. This marked the beginning of a new increasing frequency trend bucking over 25 years of falling crash rates. In response, industry partners banded together to analyze these trends. Using publicly available data from the Federal Highway Administration, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and other sources, an analysis group is searching for explanatory variables. These materials are an update to the report previously published in January 2018.

Incorporation of Flood and Other Catastrophe Model Results into Pricing and Underwriting
July 2018 
This research report on the incorporation of flood and other catastrophe model results into pricing and underwriting is prepared by the authors for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, the Society of Actuaries, and the Casualty Actuarial Society.

Premium Distribution and Market Competitiveness Under Rate Regulation
April 2018
This research concerns optimal new business written premium mix at the firm and state levels under varying competitive conditions.

Auto Loss Cost Trends Report
January 2018
This report provides an analytical basis for discussion and understanding for regulators, legislators, and the general public about national trends and state specific factors that may be driving the auto insurance loss costs, which ultimately impact premiums and the consumer.

Actuarial Review of Insurer Insolvencies, Future Preventions  
January 2018
Sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA), Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS), and Society of Actuaries (SOA), this study looks at causes of insolvency and decisions made by management, regulators, and policyholders over the life cycle of the insolvency. This study is intended to educate insurance professionals on historical insurer impairments and insolvencies and possible future prevention indicators.

2017

Delta Boosting Machine with Application to General Insurance
March 2017
This research paper introduces Delta Boosting as a new member of the boosting family.

Cybersecurity Insurance: Modeling and Pricing
March 2017
This research paper develops a framework for modeling and pricing cybersecurity risk.

2016

General Insurance Deductible Ratemaking with Applications to the Local Government Property Insurance Fund
November 2016 

Farm-Level Crop Yield Forecasting in the Absence of Farm-Level Data
November 2016 

Hedging with Life and General Insurance Products  
November 2016